Does industry cry wolf on regs?

Industries have a long track record of warning about the dire consequences of regulations and projecting that the economy will wither and countless jobs will vanish because of efforts to protect public health and safety.

Such was the case in past decades, when the federal government acted to limit lead in paint, curb acid rain and ban ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons.

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And each time, environmental advocates say, the opponents of regulation were crying “wolf.”

Now, they say, it’s happening again as the Obama administration faces an onslaught of criticism from business leaders and lawmakers trying to thwart rules on global warming, industrial air hazards and water pollution.

The anti-regulatory rhetoric from businesses and Capitol Hill is as scathing as ever.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) accused the Obama administration in an October op-ed of imposing a “restrictive regulatory stranglehold on industry.” The Environmental Protection Agency’s revised ozone standard alone, he warned, could cost 7 million jobs and about $1 trillion annually. Senate Republicans have warned that nursing homes, schools and even doughnut chains could suffer under EPA climate regulations.

But backers of health and environmental rules say they’ve heard it all before.

“Today’s forecasts of economic doom are nearly identical — almost word for word — to the doomsday predictions of the last 40 years,” EPA chief Lisa Jackson said in a September speech. “This ‘broken record’ continues despite the fact that history has proven the doomsayers wrong again and again.”

Frank O’Donnell, president of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, said there has been a “long history of exaggeration and outright distortion” from industry when it comes to estimating the impact of federal rules.

In fact, supporters of the regulations said that the economic benefits often end up far exceeding the costs. For example, the EPA predicts that the George H.W. Bush administration’s 1990 Clean Air Act amendments will have reaped $2 trillion in benefits and prevented more than 230,000 early deaths by 2020, at a cost of just $65 billion in compliance costs. Not coincidentally, the agency has trotted out those estimates as it seeks to rebut GOP attacks on its greenhouse gas regulations.

Industry groups aren’t backing down, though. They contend that the Obama administration’s regulations will be more far-reaching than any that have come before.

“Certainly, the aggressiveness of EPA over the last two years is unprecedented,” said Jeff Holmstead, an industry attorney who served as EPA air chief in George W. Bush’s administration. “Everybody has to concede that at some point, you can put in restrictions that can force plants to shut down.”